Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This Might Explain The Applause

So, we all know that the "memorial" service for the victims of the shootings down there in Arizona was a bit weird. That is, if you consider a pep-rally-esque atmosphere "weird". If you think it's perfectly normal to yell and scream and print up T-shirts and bring signage to a memorial service, then you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But considering that you're reading this blog, you most likely do not think that is normal and think that those who behaved in such a fashion are tools to the nth degree. Do you think that whole deal could get any worse? If you didn't, you might want to sit down because it kind of did.

My utmost thanks must go to Ima Wurdibitsch of The Wordy Bitch. (I highly suggest that you check out her blog. She's hilarious. I would like to have a beer with her. I would like to have several beers with her. She's that entertaining. But now I sound like a stalker. Hmm. Oh, well. Nothing new.) For it is Ima who informed me of a possible reason why there was so much cheering and carrying on at the memorial service. She directed me to a post over at something called Gateway Pundit. It is there where Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying, "I will say that I read the speech several times and thought that there wouldn’t be a lot of applause if any. I think many of us thought that. But I think there was a celebration, again, of the lives of those who had been impacted. Not just at that grocery store but throughout the country. And I think that, if that is part of the healing process, then that’s a good thing."

Before I continue, just let me say how idiotic that statement sounds. Were any of the family members of those who were killed "celebrating" that day? I'm just going to guess that they were not. I saw pictures of them from throughout the ceremony and they did not look happy. They certainly didn't look like the softheads in the stands who acted like the University of Arizona just won the Rose Bowl or something. And I don't know what part of Robert Gibbs's "healing process" involves shouting and yelling and screaming and clapping, but I don't think I agree with him that it is "a good thing". It's a disrespectful thing. It's an inappropriate thing. It's a lot of things, but I don't think that I would say that good is one of them.

Back to Gateway Pundit. After the quote from Gibbs, they write: "Oh really?Then why was it printed on the Jumbotron?" Wait. What now? Behold!

Good Lord. What in the world is wrong with people? Were they really asking for applause there? It certainly looks like they were. Now, I suppose that it could have been a closed-captioning thing for the hearing impaired. I suppose. (Granted, I'm not sure that would have been necessary, as anyone in that building, hearing impaired or not, would have known that the place was going bat-S.) But it really looks like they were asking for applause. I have no idea which one it was, but given as how President Barry did not ONCE ask for people to be respectful and pipe down, it would seem to be a logical jump that it was being asked for.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't look good no matter how you look at it. It doesn't look good if they asked for applause. And it also doesn't look good that they didn't tell people to stop applauding. (It also didn't look good that they handed out T-shirts with a freaking slogan on them. Not to mention that it was a slogan that had nothing to do with remembrance, healing or memorializing. Nothing. Who hands out T-shirts at a memorial for dead people?) President Barry's crew needs to step it up a bit in whatever way that they should have. It never should have happened the way that it did.